


Keeping Warm

by SweetSalt



Category: Figure Skating RPF, Sports RPF
Genre: Gen, author is BACK and more emo than ever, prayerfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-21
Updated: 2019-03-21
Packaged: 2019-11-26 21:32:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18185999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SweetSalt/pseuds/SweetSalt
Summary: The gate opens. Yuzuru takes a moment to bend down and touch the ice. Beneath his palms, it feels warm.





	Keeping Warm

**Author's Note:**

> Shoutout to Fieryrondo for emergency beta-ing and putting up with my inability to navigate past/present tense.

The gate opens. Yuzuru takes a moment to bend down and touch the ice. Beneath his palms, it feels warm.

 

Being away from skating never gets easier. There was that time he had to rest his knee, then his stomach, then his ligament, then another. Always another. His bones are made too brittle for his dreams—the selfish, greedy things. Too reckless for their own good. Too hungry, always trying to eat their way out. Yuzuru steps on the ice and takes off his skate guards, absentmindedly brushes his fingers against his ankles while doing so. Thanking them.

 

Many people had given him their well wishes after Rostelecom Cup. His phone vibrating off a table, flooded with exclamation marks and sympathetic words. You will be back stronger, they said. You know hardship like the back of your hand, you can do it again. He replied to them all, politely, succinctly. Thank you, your words are too kind, yes I will come back, again. 

 

A triple loop to start. He does miss the days when he could whip out a triple axel before anyone else had warmed up to their doubles, making a statement. But perhaps a humble loop can be a statement too. 

 

He rebuilds his jumps, again. From singles to doubles (or in the case of axel, from single to triple), each jump a grain of sand, a drop of oil sliding down a funnel, collecting. It was maddening, having to scrape away the rust in his joints. He had put in the work in offseason, in a lifetime of skating. Had honed his body and mind into a fine point. How was it fair that he had to do it all over again? Something sparks, closer to anger than determination. He doesn’t mind; it gets cold out there at center ice, so any sort of warmth is welcomed. All those secluded months he jumped, further and faster every week, but never quite high enough for the flame to breathe.

 

It had gotten cold out there: when his muscles stiffen from disuse, his instincts dull from time. Yuzuru had taken careful steps with his crutches, without his crutches, between bars while he did physiotherapy. It got lonely, watching the world fly by. Nathan skated two clean programs at US Nationals. Shoma broke Yuzuru’s world record at Four Continents. Yuzuru pours his all into every run through, every image training, trying his best to recreate the crowd and the intensity. But the hungry thing inside him knew better. There were days, long stretches of days, when it would shrivel up and starve, a hollow beneath his breastbone. Fire can’t burn in a vacuum. On those days Yuzuru pulled his coat tighter around himself.

 

You can do it, they said.

 

We will wait for you.

 

(No you won’t.)

 

You will become stronger than ever.

 

(Have I been weak?)

 

We are here if you want to talk.

 

(What is there to talk about? I just want to run.)

 

He switched from LINE to his video files instead, pulling out his Pyeongchang Olympic free skate.

 

I just have to do it, he thought, again.

 

But this time was different. Different injuries, different dreams. The goal for the second Olympic title was pure as lightning in his mind. Fulfilment was a more difficult beast to pin down—quieter, but by no means tamed. His dream now was to skate for himself. But skating for himself was difficult when ‘himself’ felt weaker than a candle. He rewatched the video for an umpteenth time, mumbling “dan dan!” under his breath and tapping his left foot to the choreographic sequence. He was burning, then. Every nerve white hot, his vision fogged until he could only see the ice—his path. But this time around he wanted to see everything, to savor each moment in utmost clarity. 

 

Triple axel, quad toe triple toe with arms aloft, quad salchow. He calls for them and one by one they come back for him. He takes off his jacket (a cheer erupts from the crowd, he finds the familiarity endearing); he was getting heated. 

 

Inside him, naturally, is oil and a box of matches. Yet surely there is more to him than the rudimentary tools. Not all that burned was ambition. Passion has heat, and so does focus, purpose, grit. He could tip the candle into oil and it would warm him, for a while. Yet, the ceiling was still too low and all the windows stapled shut. There had to be another source of heat. Somewhere deeper.

 

So throughout those cold, lonely months, he dug. 

 

With his bare hands, dirt in his nails, blood oozed from cuts and callus harden his skin. He dug. For his roots. Into his memories, his past performances, his old interviews. Yuzuru is no stranger to research, for he was always a student at heart. He dug, found a flame that burned bright blue and ventured deeper still. Before Javi, before Patrick, before Artur, before Plu-san and Johnny. Who was he, before he learned that medals came in three colors and podiums have three steps. What kept him from being cold at center ice?

 

He found the answer at the end of winter, when flowers budded deep pink. 

 

Before it all, there was home.

 

There were songs—sad songs—of flowers blooming and dying. There was a little girl who called him big brother and asked him to tie her hair. A sister who he followed onto the ice. A mother who wished her frail son to get some exercise. Coaches who offered to take him in when his rink closed down. Children and their crayon drawings, his music and their homemade costumes. Letters from people he never met but who knew him, knew his pain, and told him that his pain helped them to get through their pain too. People who, upon seeing him stagger between crutches, made hundreds of tearful signs overnight saying, “be happy.”

 

Yuzuru wants to skate for himself, but that is not entirely true either. Who is he if not the people who had supported him, who support him still. They had become a part of him, as he did for them. Skating is not a fire that snuffs out into darkness when there is no air. It’s light. They can all see each other, far apart as they may be, and perhaps they can help each other find their way out of the dark room. Outside. Where the wind itself is warm with spring.

 

He digs, until he breaks the outer crust. The seed lies before him—a star. Yuzuru closes his hands around it, light blooming between his fingers. Warm beneath his palms, not wild or blasting, but burning all the same. Love has heat too.

 

The practice session ends. He glides to take his bows at center ice. He gazes upon the masses and looks at the people, their faces and their eyes, thousands of them, glowing.

 

He feels sunlight pours into his heart.

 

Be happy, they said.

 

I am, he smiles back.

**Author's Note:**

> After almost a year away from writing, I wrote majority of this fic at 2am the day before Worlds men sp. It feels comforting to return to the old habit of writing prayer fic to untangle my hopes and not-hopes and other feelings in between. I wish with all my heart that Yuzuru will get to experience moments of pure and utter joy this week, because he deserves nothing less.


End file.
